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As a teacher in a girls' secondary school, I find it hugely depressing that my teenage pupils can walk into any newsagent and immediately be confronted with eye-level reminders of how male society views them (Dirty Young Men, October 22). Even more sad is the fact that a few feet away are the female weeklies - "Best and Worst Bikini Bodies", "Celebrity Cellulite Shame". How can I encourage them to be intellectually ambitious if these are the criteria by which they feel they are judged? Judith Katz
Camden School for Girls, London NW5

Only the dullest of minds could fail to see the unhealthy relationship between women's commonplace experience of violence and a culture that justifies the objectification of women as "harmless fun". Rather than sipping mineral water or gin and tonic over a free lunch, Paul Merrill, Martin Daubney and Phil Hilton might be better re-educated by a guided tour of a local refuge, where the effects of this kind of "outmoded sexual politics" are far from titillating.Rhona O'Brien
Morecambe, Lancashire

Evidently, Caryl Phillips' perceptions of Leeds continue to derive from his childhood class position (Northern Soul, October 22). For the majority of people living in the city, Leeds is an attractive, increasingly prosperous place to live, with an invaluable fabric of Victorian city centre parks and a hinterland stretching out towards the Yorkshire Dales.

Far from contemplating "unemployment and early parenthood", my Leeds friends and I hold at least one good university degree and are looking forward to contributing to the health and prosperity of what has always been a city at the forefront of modern Britain.

Furthermore, I find Phillips' assertion that "many" of Leeds' Muslims "remain unconvinced by civic proclamations of racial and ethnic harmony" to be both erroneous and irresponsible, revealing his distance from contemporary life in Leeds.John Curzon, student, University of Warwick
Coventry, West Midlands

Where does Zoe Williams think the executives of Europe's oil capital do their networking if not on the golf courses and salmon rivers of rural Aberdeenshire (A to Z, October 22)? Even the Guardian reaches this far.Jill Turner
Rural Aberdeenshire

For anyone else with a problem dog (Letters, October 22) may I recommend Jan Fennell's The Dog Listener before taking a final visit to the vet? Her approach to canine psychology is constructive, easy to read and, more importantly, works.Tracy Austin-Brydon
Milton Keynes

So, does Paul Wady (Letters, October 22) not consider the "mentally ill" capable of being "highly functional"?

Shyamini J Linhart
London N8

I've just spotted a young man riding his bike and reading the Guardian simultaneously! Obviously a tribute to the new, manageable format, even the bulky Saturday version. Maybe a risk assessment needs doing, though?Jenny Kimberlee
Worcester

· Send letters to Guardian Weekend, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER (weekend@guardian.co.uk). A postal address must be supplied. For inclusion on Saturday, letters should reach us by first post on Tuesday, and may be edited.

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